


don't want to love you (just because i'm lonely)

by Potterology



Series: lavender & velvet (you know all the things i like) [3]
Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, Lena doesn't know, They're a goddamn romance novel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-15
Updated: 2018-06-22
Packaged: 2019-04-23 11:22:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14331384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Potterology/pseuds/Potterology
Summary: Even though it starts achingly slow – metaphorical snails, in increments so tiny they might not be moving at all – it happens all the same.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I had a lot of fun writing this. Hope you enjoy! This doesn't necessarily follow on from my other works in this series, but I really think the 'vibe' of it fits really nicely in with the others.

Supergirl only ever seems to visit at night. 

(Lena’s always found the otherworldly depth of those too-blue eyes overwhelming in the daylight and there is a small part of her which wants to keep their quiet encounters wrapped up in the midnight dark. It feels like a secret. A tiny thing which is hers and hers alone.) 

From the window of her office, Lena can see a hint of the coast and the harbour kissing it; the pier beyond the messy but coordinated rows of boats and where the boardwalk cradles a collection of arcades, a Ferris wheel, some surfing shacks; a mental map stretches out after that, where she knows the city bleeds into California valleys and vineyards. It used to be a game between her and Lex, to send one another pictures of their scenery from whatever corner of the world they happened to be visiting. It’s a silly thing to miss, but something about her brother’s goofy smile as he traipsed around Japan, shot-gunning sake, in response to a carefully snuck Cape Town landscape sets off a bone deep ache, one she hasn’t felt in a long while.

The office was so crushingly _him_ when she arrived in National City it felt as if he was there all the time – so she had purged. Ousted the rich mahogany décor until it was all minimalism and clean lines, smooth tiles, leather couch, until she could breathe without a crying jag inbound at any given moment.

She steps out onto the balcony, watching the seconds on her watch tick into two am. The only wine left in her cabinet is a cheap Portuguiser out of Villány, something Sam picked up in Budapest last week, and the red goes nicely with her sudden bout of melancholy. (She is an intensely _sad_ person; these things don’t just change because the scenery does, but having so much goodness surrounding her lately is having a positive effect. Kara continues to be the cornerstone for change in her life.) The wind snaps this high up, but early April has brought a smooth warmth into the city and it moves through slow enough to be pleasant.

Lena leans against the railing, closes her eyes and inhales so deeply she almost coughs. _Lex always did have good taste in views._

“Penny for your thoughts?” a voice says just far enough off-centre to startle her.

There is too much wine in her glass to avoid spilling a few wayward drops, but Lena corrects accordingly and her eyes slide open and over lazily; manages a genuine, if a little shaky, smile to cover any surprise. 

 _Supergirl_ , gravity nothing more than an afterthought.

( _She’s beautiful_ , Lena thinks. _A god made flesh_. Not that she particularly buys into deities and worship, but she knows her Greek mythology and there’s something seductive about unimaginable power offset by a short skirt and ten-thousand-watt smile. _Zeus, a gentler form_.)

“Hardly worth it,” she offers back and the hero rolls her eyes.

“Are you always this dramatic?”

Lena huffs an honest laugh, but the quiet murmur of traffic swallows it subtly. As their eyes meet over the empty space between them, there is an unmistakable feeling of water being set to boil.

 _It’s all about timing, kid_ , she hears Lex say in her ear.  

“I was thinking about my brother,” Lena admits. An undecipherable look passes over Supergirl’s face and she decides not to attempt to decode behaviour patterns; there is a ship coming into dock and Lena focuses on it instead of the floating woman three feet away. “Like I said. Not worth it.”

The water is getting hotter, steam rising. Lena sips her wine, annoyed at letting anything slip. 

It’s not that she doesn’t want to share these types of things with Supergirl: she doesn’t want to share it with _anyone_. She doesn’t want to tell the world and sundry that Lex was not always a megalomaniac bent on trying to kill little green men. She doesn’t want to tell anyone that, when her feet hurt from the heels Lillian forced her to wear at graduation, Lex piggybacked her all over campus. Lena isn’t interested in spinning dits about how he once braided her hair the day before he left for college, or that he taught her how to throw a football, or played tag even when he was too old for it, or how he never – not once – missed one of her chess tournaments. She keeps every photo, every trinket, every note and letter in a locked safe behind a painting he gave her on Christmas (the one of water lilies, because they are her favourite).

Lena wants to tell exactly no one. Not even Kara.

As time stretches on, she contemplates just going back inside to shake off whatever this tension is, but a diplomatic, “You still love him,” stops her. Her eyes flick over to where two red boots are just now coming to touch down on the smooth flat of the balcony beside her. Lena is powerless to do anything but nod.

“I do.”

Something behind Supergirl’s eyes shifts, moving as she does to mimic Lena’s pose against the railing; they stand – powerhouse to powerhouse – and look out onto the city, and there’s the _watched pot_ feeling once more. 

“My parents were… Not good people. I’m still coming to terms with it. But it doesn’t take away what I feel for them or what they felt for me. Maybe it’s different now, maybe hindsight has changed my perspective, but they don’t stop being a part of me just because I can see both sides of them now.” Supergirl shifts and lefts the pads of her fingertips rest feather-light on the back of Lena’s hand. Their eyes meet and it is only then Lena notices just how little space there is between them. “I’m sorry.” 

They are so close, Lena can smell the fruity wash of her hair; the hint of smoke from a house fire that was on the news less than half an hour ago; the salt of the harbour and something deeper, something rawer and alien and _powerful_. There’s a shift in the air. Silent, slow but with a startling clarity.  

“For what?” Lena half-whispers, voice suddenly hoarse. Supergirl offers a hint of a smile, head ducking in an unusual display of shyness. 

“That you have to know what that feels like.”

_The water boils over._

Even though it starts achingly slow – metaphorical snails, in increments so tiny they might not be moving at all – it happens all the same. One of them, _both of them_ , leans forward and closes the minute gap, lips brushing in the barest hint of a kiss. Chaste and quiet and breathtakingly intimate, Lena’s eyes slide closed and every single cell of her body begs her not to open them in the off chance it might all be some elaborate hallucination. _Don’t ruin it, don’t ruin it, don’t ruin it_ –

“ _Lena_ ,” Supergirl’s voice rumbles between them, sinking into her chest, because whatever scratch Lena had felt in her throat is nothing compared to the utterly _wrecked_ sound coming out of the woman in front of her. It’s as if they’ve been doing this for hours rather than seconds. (It’s devastatingly attractive. Say what you want about it.)

A thumb brushes her cheek, a palm slots against the side of her neck.

Lena feels too full, uncomfortable, full of recklessness that sits so foreign in her body and she can’t bare just standing there. The hero seems to sense her sudden discomfort and instead of pulling away, she kisses her again. This time, Supergirl doesn’t kiss her as if Lena is some fragile, breakable thing waiting to shatter. She kisses with a hidden passion, as if every conversation or look shared up until now has been preamble for the kicker, sweeping into Lena’s mouth as if trying to commit every part of her to memory, savouring each second, sinking into each other. 

( _This might be the one and only._ It’s a terrible, terrible thought.)

 _Take me home_ , she wants to say and god, it hurts how badly she wishes she could. They could be there in seconds, through the door and falling into bed before it even closed. Would it be gentle? Rough? An angry underscore carrying through every action as if each was paying recompense for their family’s crimes against one another? The Capulets and the Montagues, street feuding, leaving just these last scions to battle it out through other means. Lena pictures what being bruised by a kiss would truly look like; not just the tinged fade of lipstick stain, but the actual deep purple of a strength digging into her thighs that could move mountains, the burn of an ice-cold tongue, white-hot power and the rage at being the last of a dead planet and people. She wonders what it would be like to be _fucked_ by the most powerful being on Earth.

( _Lois Lane really settled for Clark Kent after knowing stardust?_ )

The hand at her neck slides into her hair, the other finding the swell of her hip. There’s nowhere for her to go except forward into the circle of Supergirl’s arms, the lean muscle as unforgiving as concrete but the woman as pliable as water, the barest hint of suggestion just enough to illicit a moan as Lena clutches at broad shoulders for grounding. (She must look at least a little silly; one hand clinging desperately, the other only barely trying to balance the still half-full glass of wine.)

But it seems to take the pot off the heat.

Supergirl breaks the kiss suddenly, pulling back with a long exhale, physically pushing Lena away by a good few inches as the hero struggles to bring herself back together. They’re both breathless. A little blushing. And just as they each open their mouth, sirens blare out from the streets below, disappearing at breakneck speed in the direction of the highway. Lena flinches.

“I should leave,” Supergirl croaks out and it’s the sexiest thing she has ever heard. Also, the smartest.

Lena doesn’t bother to reply with a gentle _probably_ , but it’s implicit in the way she steps back respectfully. She smiles and takes a healthy sip of wine, gesturing out towards the city in a flamboyant gesture, “Up, up and away.” She doesn’t bother to watch the woman jet off into the night, turning instead back to her office and trying in vain not to feel immensely cheated.


	2. going home (the way you came)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rated M.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rated M.

Lena buys the penthouse. It’s a top floor, gauche thing that she hardly looks at when the estate agent shows her around, and spends more time than she cares to admit hating the idea of setting down roots. This is no sure thing. This is an amalgamation of game nights, James and his sweet smile, Alex’s random texts about quinoa and restaurant recommendations, and of course a certain reporter. A voice – which sounds too close to her mother for comfort – whispers _they have left you without a clean exit_.

(Her anger is residual: leftovers from Lex’s abandonment, from Lillian’s constant push pull betrayal, and the beating thud of _KaraKaraKara_ when Lena bothers to think too much about why she remains in National City.)

The balcony is more a patio and the windows are floor to ceiling; sunlight soaks the apartment as near soon as it hits the horizon, lending a false warmth to the sleek surfaces; and even from here she can see the looming shard of L-Corp’s headquarters crawling skyward. Everywhere she looks, there’s a building with either a name on it she owns – some subsidiary or another – or a competitor. Maybe that’s why Carol suggested it. (A Freudian and narcissistic part of her likes the idea of a _kingdom_.) Her eyes track the skyline as it dims with the sunset and wonders about what the rest of the city would see if they looked up at her now.

A conqueror? A devil? A victim of circumstance?

Lena takes a long, contemplative sip of her wine and adjusts the sheets loosely wrapped around her.  “I never imagined myself settling down on this side of the country,” she says quietly, not really intending for a response. A part of her wishes she was just talking to the ether rather than the spectral figure who steps up behind her.

Gentle palms rest on her hips and fit into the deep purple bruises blooming just under where the sheet dips devastatingly low; blonde hair flashes in her vision for a brief moment but it’s gone, traded with a warm mouth trailing along her shoulder. A hum of likewise wonder echoes back. Of course. Supergirl would never – could never – have imagined Earth or the dangers and tragedies it might hold when she crashed landed alongside her cousin. Lena wants to know the story. Every dirty little detail, right down to what she suspects might have become of this young alien girl, lost in the bright brand new ahead of her; that same thudding whisper _karakarakara_. Lena sips and swallows the question she wants to ask. _Is it you?_

“I’m sorry about these,” Supergirl mumbles after a long moment, hands already sliding around Lena’s waist. Her thumb taps against the mottled skin in an infuriatingly gentle manner; Lena hardly wants apologies, not when the pit of her stomach feels so hateful.

“Don’t be,” is her reply.

The hands on her wander. One to her breast, clever fingers quickly circling a nipple. The other dips as low as it dares to tap a hazy rhythm on the inside of her thigh. It would be so, so easy to lean back into the embrace, maybe drop the wine glass and let herself be pressed into the window, fucked from behind by a God with strong hands and a hot mouth. It would be easy to relax and give in and take whatever this impossible creature is willing to give; a memory replays in her head at the thought of a hand on her neck and four fingers inside her, a delightful ache building as she pictures a headboard slamming on powerful repeat against the wall. _Fuck me_ , she wants to say, “You should go,” is what comes out and it’s half-hearted at absolute best.

Supergirl doesn’t move. The hand between Lena’s legs doesn’t hesitate from hitching up slightly and two fingers find their mark on her clit, slow and exaggerated circles starting, a flood of slick immediately coating the hot skin underneath. The indignity of it: being undermined by her own fucking body.

“I mean it,” Lena says, more forceful, even as her head drops back against a broad shoulder. The hand on her breast squeezes not-so-gently. The bruises on her hips (and the fingertip patterned ones on her thighs) throb with the attention in time to her pulse, _thudthudthud_ , and a breathless moan rips out of her so suddenly she almost chokes on it. “There was a picture. Someone – took a picture of us, the other night,” and Christ, she’s struggling to concentrate on her words when the hand between her legs dips and two fingers slide inside her. It’s nothing compared to what they’ve already done, but considering how sensitive she feels right now, the stretch is sore enough to send fireworks up her spine. 

“When we kissed?” Supergirl says in her ear, tongue flicking out against the lobe. Her hand starts to move in earnest now, rougher with every thrust; the other shifts up and over her nipple to slot securely around Lena’s throat. Every nerve ending comes alive and she struggles not to go completely boneless in the tight grip. 

“Mm. A friend of mine pulled it from print, but --” A particularly savage thrust tells her Supergirl knows exactly who James is and why he might be trying to cover their backs. The hand around her throat tightens just a fraction, ever careful of human limits, but a third finger works inside and it’s almost too much to take. “—CatCo isn’t the only one who has it.”

 “So?”

 Chalk it up to the hot, heavy voice in her ear (National City’s sweetheart fucks like a rugby player, who would have guessed?) and the sheer audacity of doing this where the entire city could see them, but Lena’s embarrassed at how sudden what she is sure will be a shattering orgasm has crept up on her.

 “ _So_ , everyone will know,” she whispers. The wine glass shatters when it hits the floor, but Lena doesn’t care, she’s got a fistful of sheets and one tangled in blonde hair, and the insane build in her gut is growing with every stroke. _Fuck_.

“Know what? How you like it?” Christ, it’s utterly filthy and unexpected and _shitshitshit_ –

It’s just as Earth shattering as she expected. And Supergirl doesn’t stop when her body arches, doesn’t ease up or work her through it before another approaches at lightning speed, a string of profanities escaping the CEO.

When they finally slow and stop; when the fingers inside her ease out and leave her with an empty, annoyed feeling; when Supergirl steps away and leaves her swaying in the middle of her damn living room, the imprint of the El crest pressed into the skin of her back, Supergirl leaves. It’s not without a short kiss which belays the rest of their night, or without a whispered, “I’ll handle it.”

 


End file.
